Film
VIFF REVIEW: TWO INDIANS TALKING
(Note: this was meant to have been posted during the 2010 VIFF but the text went AWOL. We thought the film deserving of exposure and hope the review will still serve that purpose at this late date.) This engrossing two-hander from first-time director Sara McIntyre adds some much needed weight to the all-too-thin catalogue of [...]
VIFF REVIEW: WINDS OF HEAVEN
Winds of Heaven—Canada The subject of Emily Carr could use a fresh and involving visual spin, so I wish this doc by Michael Ostroff had found its focus and gelled. Instead it’s a too-wide-ranging grab bag of voiceover, historical footage and recreated events, largely and more thoroughly explored in art historian Gerta Moray’s excellent 2006 [...]
VIFF REVIEW: REVERSE
Reverse—Poland A bizarre combo of feminist perspective, historic commentary and farcical thriller shot in elegant black and white, Reverse centres on three generations of women living in their cozy Warsaw apartment in 1952. Mom and grandma meddle in daughter Sabina’s love life while Stalinist control overshadows all aspects of everyday life. Skinny, bespectacled editrix Sabina, [...]
VIFF REVIEW: DAVID WANTS TO FLY
David Wants to Fly—Germany/Switzerland David Sieveking’s meandering yet well-plotted doc on the Transcendental Meditation movement begins with earnest interest and gradually turns into exposé. The director doubles as protagonist: a fresh young German film-school grad seeks a subject and finds one in TM because his idol, US film director David Lynch, espouses the movement. Sieveking [...]